Vegemite meets the Great Wall

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Mel here. Things are looking up. Vegemite has been my saviour and I'm feeling a little better after the duck episode....of which we shall never speak again. Okay?


The best thing to happen in the past 24 hours is that my sister Shanny has arrived in fair Beijing. We haven't seen her since our wedding, but she's still as lovely as ever (awwww). She'll see very little of the city, as we'll be squashing her into a tiny hard-class train compartment tomorrow and shipping her off to Mongolia with us.


With the help of a lot of Gatorade, the fruits of our enormous first aid kit and my trusty yeast concentrate spread, I was able to recover from my nasty bout enough to join the Great Wall party. We were blessed with some stunning sunshine and even (gasp!) blue sky, which made our many necessary breathers all the more pleasant. The Great Wall is both great and effective. Bloody big, bloody steep and bloody impenetrable...though we're not the hardy Mongolian invaders it aimed to keep out and I guess they had more success (but then they didn't have the duck sweats, did they?)


The views were stunning and Gareth the Gazelle (yes, Kim, the name's definitely stuck!) bounded his way along until the wall crumbled away into rubble. Those of us with more squat legs took it a little easier and spent our energy on happy-snapping. Check out Gareth's results.

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Photos

Ken surveys the view
You might not remember this intrepid traveler but he joined us back in Mongolia ('05) and has decided to join us for the rest of the trip.

The awesome foursome
We weren't really aiming for this cheesy pop-group pose, we swear!

Comments

[somerandomtraveler]

OutFrotroubleonABrigthSunnyDay
you the one in red yes you i love that bright smile =)

[Tom Mannsfeldt]

Following your blog is a great preview to what lies ahead for us.... keep the stories coming!